Winning new customers by using direct mail has been used successfully for many years some companies spending millions in the process. A larger proportion of those millions are, or course, wasted. Why? Because the mail shot went to the wrong person.

In today's information society there is no excuse for spending a fortune with no gain. The business owner needs to make sure that the marketing message is accurately directed so that uninterested recipients are not annoyed by mail boxes full of junk mail. It's only junk mail if goes to the wrong address. As someone with absolutely no interest whatsoever in sport and mail shot trying to sell me sports equipment or tickets for the big game would be wasted, in fact worse than wasted because it would simply annoy me. Sending me info about the latest piece of digital camera technology, on the other hand, would have me glued to the message.

List brokers can provide you with mailing lists for consumers and for businesses. All the lists are checked regulary to make sure you are buying accurate information giving you the best return on your spend.

This list provided by a UK list broker, http://www.marketscan.co.uk/ has literally hundreds of categories and be broken down into sub sets, perhaps in postcode areas, regions or distance from your business. Most lists are provided on a one time use only basis but anyone who responds to your mailing can, of course, be followed up as often as you like, The lists are provided for you as a spreadsheet and are usually emailed to you as soon as your payment goes through.

There are lots of formats for selling letters but my favourite is based on the following structure:

1. Tell the reader the problem they are facing, poor deliveries or quality, bad design, wrong sizes or colours, etc.
2. Offer them a solution. It will be no surprise that your business will be the one offering the solution.
3. Tell them what to do next. Dial the freephone number or return the post paid enquiry cared for example.
4. Promise to contact them within the next few days to anwer any questions they may have.
5. Thank them for reading your letter.

The beauty of direct mail is the opportunity to test your letter, so try to develop two or three versions of your letter and send them out to small samples of your market segment, this will allow you to measure the effectiveness of each letter before you do the full mailing.

Remember, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it!